Fallout Xenoverse
by Sareth Atraeus
Summary: A decade after the events of Fallout 4, a certain Time Patrol agent is dispatched to this harsh world to counter a mysterious threat which has drastically altered the balance of power in the Commonwealth.
Summary: A decade after the events of Fallout 4, a certain Time Patrol agent is dispatched to this harsh world to counter a mysterious threat which has drastically altered the balance of power in the Commonwealth.

Author note: This takes place an undetermined time after the events of Xenoverse and the defeat of Demigra, starring an OC Time Patroller. It does not concern itself with the Xenoverse DLC content but does include Fallout 4 DLC content up to Far Harbor, and may include elements of that once I've had a chance to play through it. Certain liberties are taken to the Canon of both universes, for sake of ease and due to plot elements, but are intended to be kept at minimum.

As per the usual disclaimer, I do not own rights to any above franchises and this story is for entertainment purposes only. Please support the official release!

CHAPTER 1

Hail the conquering hero

It's said that, after his campaigns were complete and the known world was under his rule, Alexander the Great wept, for there were no more nations to conquer. Whether this was apocryphal or not, Taryn could understand the sentiment. It had been six months, more or less, since he had fired the final blow against the demon God Demigra, thwarting the ancient evil creature's designs to consume and rewrite all of time. Though he hadn't done it alone – without the support and sacrifices of the warriors of Earth he'd have never stood a chance – it was by his hand the demon god had been vanquished; the problem was that, after such a victory, everything else seemed… mundane in comparison. As strange as it might have deemed to call the responsibility of monitoring the flow of time itself _mundane,_ it was an unavoidable fact that Taryn was bored… and that had never been a good thing.

Currently, the Time Patrol agent was in his chosen "brooding spot" as the Supreme Kai liked to call it, perched atop the Time Vault where he could see almost the entirety of Tokitoki City. His tail scraped lazy, meaningless patterns on the roof as he sat, chin couched in the palm of one hand, and contemplated the array of creamy domes and spores behind the thick walls that separated the wards. Months of training with the legendary fighters – both good and evil – had honed his considerable skills to a razor edge, but he had to admit that as much as he enjoyed it, his enthusiasm had waned considerably once there were fewer big threats to deal with. At least, he thought it had been months, he honestly couldn't accurately determine how long it had been. Time didn't pass here, at the nexus of all possible timestreams; it pooled and rippled, but didn't really _flow_ in the way it should. The only indication of his personal timeframe was the rough estimate given by the scouter he wore, a sleek design he didn't exactly know the origin of. Certainly more advanced than those of his original time frame, though he wasn't sure where that was in relation to any when he had yet visited.

The incipient headache he invariably got when trying to make sense of temporal mechanics – still not his strong suit no matter how much Trunks tried to explain it – was sidetracked by the appearance of another Time Patrol agent, a Saiyan based on the wild mane of hair, emerging from the mouth of the Vault. Taryn hadn't seen him enter, and curiosity led him to lean over for a better view. _Hmmm,_ he thought, _Orange gi, blue wrist and ankle weights. Turtle school probably… or new._

He must have made some noise – foot talons or tail scraping perhaps – because the fighter glanced up. The heavy-browed face blanched, tanned flesh paling almost paper-white, and the Saiyan leaped back into a defensive stance. Pressure built, flattening the grass around his feet as he drew up his ki, anger and barely hidden fear smoldering in dark, narrowed eyes.

Taryn sighed and stood up, a flicker of will lifting his compact frame from the roof's surface to hover above it. Slowly, carefully, he raised his arms and opened his hands in a gesture of surrender. Not long ago he'd have accepted the wordless challenge from either the thrill of combat, testing himself against an opponent regardless of reason, or – as he'd done before being summoned here – bitterness at the unearned animosity towards him due purely to his species. Now though, secure in his power and more or less at peace with his the legacy of his infamous ancestors, he found it more wearying than anything else.

"Easy now," he called, drifting slowly down using his kind's innate telekinetic power. Any summoning of his own considerable ki could easily be seen as a challenge, and he wanted to defuse this guy, not aggravate him. "You new? I'm an agent too, name's Taryn. Just chill, we're all friends-"

A wordless snarl was his reply, that and a hurled bolt of energy, yellow-white and roiling hotly with the hatred and rage that generated it. It hissed toward him, and with only a moment to decide a course of action, Taryn let instinct guide him. A fraction of a second before it would have struck him he spun to the left, letting the energy skim off the edge of his own hastily erected barrier. He cupped his tail around the energy ball, noting in passing how loose it was, the Saiyan's ki unfocused, the technique sloppy, then attenuated his own ki to accommodate it, flipping it back towards him.

Predictably the Saiyan crossed his arms and took the blow head on, heels furrowing the ground as he skidded back. He glared up towards Taryn – or rather, where he'd been – before the latter's tail snaked under his armpit and over the opposite shoulder. Taryn squeezed, sending the Saiyan's breath out in a wheezing gust, then lifted the much larger man and slammed him bodily into the dirt. A quick joint lock and the guy was grunting painfully into the ground, one arm pinned by Taryn's tail and his own body weight, the other bent behind his back and held there with one small but undeniably strong hand.

"So, new it is then," Taryn growled. _Guy's strong, but sloppy. Too busy thinking about his arm to remember he can fly._ "Listen, dumbass. Quick version; I ain't Freeza, I'm on _your_ side, and you're too green to take me. Now, Imma let you go. We can continue this fracas if you want but I'll kick your ass from one side of Tokitoki to the other. Or we can talk. Your choice."

He let the Saiyan go, whipping his tail away with just enough force to spin the man all the way around to land on his face again – okay, so he wasn't _quite_ as inured to this crap as he should be – and hopped back, drifting just above the ground half a dozen feet away. He waited, arms folded across his chest, tail snaking back and forth behind him, and watched while the Saiyan rose and eyed him hatefully. Taryn knew what he saw: a compact frame, thickly muscled, skin so dark a green it was nearly black. A substance something between bone and cartilage formed natural armor around his chest, shoulders, and forearms in hues of deep blue. It tipped his tail as well, and formed a helmet over his skull, three horns – one at center and each side of the heavy brow ridge – curving back and then up again behind the curve of his skull. More padded his shins though that was covered by the loose purple pants he wore. The substance hardened at his fingertips and ends of his three prehensile toes, forming short, thick talons. A biogem on each forearm, one at the diaphram, and one that took up most of the top of his head, all the same sea-blue of his eyes.

More than that, Taryn knew that he saw a member of The same species that had all but annihilated his own. Taryn's hatching was centuries removed from Freeza's genocidal actions and ambitions, but even in his native time the madman's act still tainted the reputation of his species, and his clan. Part of him understood that enmity and shared it to a degree – enough to have relished beating the tyrant to bloody pulp in every timeframe he found him – but he'd long ago grown sick of being tarred with the same brush.

The Saiyan spat dirt from his mouth, dragged his arm across his lips, all without shifting that hateful gaze. He stood there in silence for long moments, body tight with tension, then spat again, this time at Taryn's feet. "Filthy Arcosian," he muttered. "The hell something like you'd be allowed here?"

"Not Arcosian," Taryn countered. At the other's confused look, he continued, "Some of my kind settled on Arcos – well, more conquered, but we're not actually from there. Nobody knows where our origin is, or what we're truly called. Nobody I know, anyway. Don't really care to find out, honestly.

As for being here, well, I was summoned. Long story… and anyway…" Taryn rose a little higher, to put himself eye level with the taller Saiyan, and his gravelly voice dropped. "We're not all insane, tyrannical mutants, any more than Saiyans are all bloodthirsty killers."

A lesser man might have stepped back from that intensity; the Saiyan, to his credit, didn't. A moment later his eyes widened. "Wait… summoned? You're _that_ Taryn? The one who-"

"Wiped out Demigra?" Taryn flapped his tail dismissively and glanced to the side. "Yeah, but it wasn't just me. I just got the final blow in."

"HEY!"

Taryn flinched involuntarily. No matter how many times he heard it, Trunks' voice grated like claws on a chalkboard whenever he yelled. It made his ears – well, the organs roughly analogous to ears – ring every time. He quarter turned to watch the lavender-haired half Saiyan approach while still keeping an eye on the other man; he seemed calmer now, but there was still clear distrust in his face and posture, and Taryn didn't want another scuffle no matter how confident he was of winning. Sparring was one thing, but as much as he liked combat, grudge matches were exhausting.

Trunks jogged up quickly, glancing shrewdly between the Saiyan and Taryn. It didn't take much to assess the situation; it wasn't the first time a Saiyan – or Namekian, or one of numerous other species – took issue with Taryn or others of his species due to the Cold Clan's reputation. That was part of the reason they were rare among the Time Patrol, that and the species were more rare population-wise in the first place.

"Everything good here?" he asked, subtly putting himself a little closer to Taryn to indicate his backing. Taryn appreciated the sentiment; it hadn't been long ago Trunks would have been more concerned with protecting others from Taryn's intent to prove himself fists first.

"Captain Trunks, sir!" The Saiyan straightened up stiffly, prompting Taryn to hide his grin behind one hand. Trunks for his part rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably; although he _was_ technically the head of the Patrol – under the Kai, of course – he still had difficulty explaining to new recruits the informality of the organization. "Everything is fine, sir!"

"Really…. Uh…."

"Burroc, sir!"

"Burroc then. I could have sworn I saw—"

"It's fine, really," Taryn interjected, laying a hand on Trunks' shoulder. "Just a misunderstanding, Eggplant."

He intended to say more, but the way the young Saiyan's eyes bugged out when he used the nickname was priceless. Taryn doubled over, stifling laughter so hard his war mask slid over his face, while Trunks facepalmed and muttered under his breath and the other Saiyan goggled between them.

"One time… I told you that one time…." Trunks groaned from between his fingers.

"Heh heh hee… and it will never get old." Even muffled behind the mask, Taryn's voice was amused. _Plus,_ he thought to himself, _it defused the situation nicely._

Trunks sighed and shook his head, brushed his hair out of his eyes, and glanced over at Burroc. "Krillin's waiting on you, kid. Better not keep him waiting. As for you," he turned back to Taryn, "C'mon. _She's_ waiting for us. New mission, something weird."

"Define _wierd_ ," Taryn demanded, after a moment to think and compose himself. His mask retracted as he and Trunks headed toward the Time Nest, Burroc trotting away toward the city proper. "I've got a high tolerance lately."

"No kidding, but even by our standards, this is…" Trunks trailed off, collecting his thoughts. They walked in silence for a few moments – well, Trunks walked, Taryn drifted, he disliked actually walking if he could avoid it – before Trunks continued. "It's not something – well, _somewhen_ – we'd usually intervene in, for one."

At Taryn's questioning grunt, he shrugged and glanced over at the floating man. "How much do you know about Earth? It's history, I mean, before the Saiyans came for Goku?"

Taryn thought for a moment, then whipped his tail in the equivalent of an 'eh' gesture. "Not much. I punch stuff, bud, you know that. I don't care much about what little I know of my own people's history, never bothered to look into humans."

"Well, short version is, there was a war, a big one, a long, long time ago. Call Goku's arrival on Earth the 'present' for sake of comparison, this would be close to a thousand years before that. It ravaged the planet, nearly past the point of recovery. Took a long time before things got back to normal – well, our normal. Earth now is different in a lot of ways than before, in large part because of how things worked out. Follow me so far?"

Taryn nodded, remembering how Namek had looked after Freeza. If the planet hadn't been destroyed, if somehow it had become livable it would have been completely different. He'd seen enough records of wars among various species to know the aftereffects could be significant.

"Well, because so much of the Earth we know is a result of how it recovered then, travel to that period is almost nonexistent. No one wants to cause, well, problems, y'know? Plus…." Trunks blew a gust of air out, raked his hair back again, and turned to face Taryn as they came to the Nest's doorway. "Well it's also before people – humans, I mean – learned to harness ki. And the conditions are… harsh, to say the least. Radiation, mutations, weird electromagnetic distortions… a wasteland, and nobody's really sure…"

"If they'd even survive the trip?" Taryn supplied, finally starting to understand. His species were hardy to the extreme. Though not indestructible, he could survive extremes of pressure and temperature – or lack thereof – that few others could come close to. And there was the matter of ki – a ravaged world would supply very little in the way of power to any of the Time Patrol, and they all relied on those powers to one degree or another. Taryn on the other hand, while adept in ki techniques, preferred his native telekinetic abilities and hand to hand skills, and used ki primarily to augment those rather than the beam spam many others relied on.

"Or survive once there, yeah." Trunks led the way into the Time Nest. Inside, the Supreme Kai of Time stood, arms folded as she studied the scroll set before her. She was so absorbed in it she barely seemed to notice their entrance, or Tokitoki perched on her head. The ancient bird trilled at their approach, jogging her from reverie long enough to give them a wan shadow of her usual grin.

"Good to see you, guys. Trunks, have you caught him up?"

"Mostly, yeah." Trunks waved Taryn over to the scroll. Peering down, the agent caught a glimpse of a dizzying array of images, passing so quickly he could barely make sense of them – a giant gear, or was it a door, a huge creature that looked like Nappa through a funhouse mirror splashed with paint, some kind of floating robot ball with too many eyes and arms, an old ship sitting on top of a tower over a ruined city, a bright flash of a titanic explosion, some kind of airship with smaller things, flying cars maybe, swarming around it like flies, rows and rows of soldiers, no, robots of some kind…

He didn't know how long it was, but he was suddenly aware of Trunks shaking him, violently. Taryn jerked out of his grip and stalked, stiff-legged, a few steps away, shaking his head in a vain effort to dislodge the images and the nausea that roiled in his belly. He coughed twice, harshly, then looked up through eyes still swimming in distortion. "…. The HIFL was that?"

"I don't know," the Kai said soberly. "And that worries me. I've never seen a scroll do this before. It started a little while ago, centered around this era, but the effects are spreading. All I can tell us that something happened that wasn't supposed to, and it's not splitting off into its own timeline…"

Taryn's perplexed look must have been a little too obvious, because the Kai frowned at him. "Honestly, I shouldn't have to explain this _again_. Look, significant events cause multiple timelines, right?" Trunks opened his mouth, only to snap it shut when both girl and bird shifted glares to him. "Don't you dare. Anyway, I'm not doing the whole thing again. This point in time is a nexus, changes here effect everything else. Normally these changes are shunted off into alternate timelines, which is natural and right. But for some reason it's affecting everything, like with Demigra. But it's not him," she said quickly, holding up a hand to forestall any other questions. "I'd know what to look for this time. I can't read the scroll the way I should, either. There's only one way I can see to figure it out: someone has to enter and observe this time period. They'll act like an anchor, something I can fix on so I can figure out what's happening. Then I can tell them, and they can fix it. Simple!" she finished, with a ghost of her usual exuberance.

"And by someone, I assume you mean me," Taryn said, finally standing straight again without feeling that his lunch wasn't going to come spinning out like ejected star matter. He smiled and wagged his tail at the Kai to soften his tone. "It's cool, Kaioshin. I know I'm the best candidate, and I'm more than willing. Kinda excited at the challenge, actually. I've got a couple questions though. First, I'm not human, so…"

"It can't be helped, " the Kai said. "Hopefully there's enough weirdness already that your appearance can be written off as some kind of mutation, but if not… well, I think there may have been some alien visitors already. Worst to worst, make up some excuse."

"Jump in blind and hope for the best, hmm? Wouldn't be the first time. So, second question, won't having me there cause more problems? I mean, unless all you want me to do is watch, I'm gonna be… loud, that far in the past."

"That's not as big a problem as it might seem," Trunks said, glancing to the Kai and continuing when she nodded. "Just like when we fought Towa and Mira, small changes tend to get smoothed over. You could say that time sorta… wants to happen, I guess. As long as the ultimate result is what it's supposed to be, the little stuff doesn't factor in. Just don't blow up any cities or, y'know, landscapes, and it should be fine."

"Plus," the Kai added, offering an encouraging smile, "the whole point of this is to figure out what's going on in the first place. Once we know, and you fix it, everything else will fall into place. You'll fade from memory after you leave same as usual." She looked over at the scroll, frowned, and turned back. "Whenever you're ready is fine, but I _am_ worried about how fast these ripples are spreading through the timestream, so the quicker you get started the happier I'll be."

A tap against his scouter brought Taryn's inventory and he ran through it quickly. _Most of my stuff's capsule stored already,_ he thought, glad he'd taken Trunks up on getting his own little done out by the Time machine junkyard rather than staying in the barracks, _so that's not a big deal. Got a little bag of senzus, useful little buggers. Ki-amp that Vegeta gave me after I finished his training, might be handy. Easier to wear clothes though, it'll help with not freaking out the locals… what do I have…?_

He flicked through his clothing tabs with quick eye movements, finally settling on a dark blue Saiyan jumpsuit and green chestplate that nearly matched his skin tone. He doubted the armor itself was more protective than his natural keratin armoring, but it helped to offset the not-quite-human proportions of his body frame. Nothing he could do about his six-foot long tail, but that couldn't be helped. Unlike his distant ancestor Freeza, he couldn't transform in the regular sense, but he could modify his organic armoring to a certain degree thanks to a few centuries of evolution and, more effectively, scientific advances available in Tokitoki City.

A quick trip to the changing room inside the Nest and he emerged clad in his chosen outfit, the horns on his head now flattened out instead of round and almost touching the curve of his skull, forming the illusion of a helmet. His finger talons were much reduced and more smooth-tipped, and the spines on the top of his feet now curled between his toes, providing better purchase and stability when walking, handy when normal walking for his species was somewhere akin to a human walking on their hands.

"Whaddya think?" He asked, taking a slow spin as he approached the table. Trunks nodded approvingly, then handed him a couple of capsules. Taryn glanced at the labels before storing them in his clip pouch; a compact version of the hybrid's original time machine and 'general supplies' which generally meant food and toiletries.

"Hopefully this won't take too long, but better to be prepared," Trunks explained. "You might be there for a while. If you lose contact with us for more than a couple weeks, use the pod. It's hardwired to come back here at the point of transit. We've only had an agent on long-term jaunts a handful of times, but we've never had to use it yet. I guess you're set, partner…" He frowned, rubbed nervously at the back of his head, then forced a smile and clapped Taryn on the shoulder. "Good luck. Come back safe, okay?"

Taryn flashed fangs as he grinned and clasped forearms with his friend. "I got skills and a photographic memory. Luck is for mammals… and ambulatory slugs," he boasted, knowing the bravado would put Trunks a little more at ease. It was a Saiyan thing, almost genetic in his opinion. "Seriously though, don't worry. I'll be fine."

"Make sure you are," the Kai said forcefully, almost as forcefully as she punched his arm. "Just don't lose the scouter or your backup, or we can't track you or talk."

"One time!" Taryn lifted a finger to emphasize his point. "Give a guy a break! Better yet, _you_ try fighting four Super Saiyan legends at once…"

With that, he drifted over to the scroll, spread out on its podium. He avoided looking in for more than a glance, glimpsing a flash of red and brilliant blue lines that could only be lazers, before looking back at the hybrid and the god, beings who, inexplicably and irrevocably had become his closest friends since the day a magical eternal had summoned him from a life of fear and pain. A meaningless animals existence, hunted and reviled… a life far removed from what he had now. He grinned widely again, feeling the old familiar excitement, the rush of adrenaline and anticipation that had gradually faded since the defeat of Demigra. Doubt and fear washed away, he pulled the scroll to his chest.

"Later, bitches!" He called, then his body dissolved into cerulean light. His thoughts narrowed into a hot, bright pinprick of intent and will, and then he was gone….


End file.
